***Vice Presidential Debate Fact-Check Livewire***

During the vice presidential debate on Tuesday night, Indiana Governor Mike Pence said, "The Clinton Foundation accepted foreign contributions from foreign governments and foreign donors while she was Secretary [of State]."

Fact check: TRUE.

Not only did foreign governments and foreign donors give to the Clinton’s family charity, but the majority of people outside of the government who met with Clinton while she was in office were Clinton Foundation donors, according to the Associated Press.

The ultimate proof of Pence’s claim? The Clinton Foundation has grudgingly said that it would no longer accept foreign contributions if she became president.

During Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine claimed that “As a candidate, [Donald Trump] started his campaign where he called Mexicans rapists and criminals.”

In his June 16, 2015 speech announcing his run for the presidency, Donald Trump said the following:

When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically.

The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.

Thank you. It’s true, and these are the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people.

It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably— probably— from the Middle East. But we don’t know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don’t know what’s happening. And it’s got to stop and it’s got to stop fast.

Trump was referring to illegal aliens coming over the U.S.-Mexico border who commit additional crimes, such as rape. As Breitbart Texas has extensively documented, it’s common for human traffickers to “to sexually assault or rape the females” en route to the U.S., and the smugglers “usually remove an article of clothing from the female they rape and they tie it tightly to a tree—a rape tree.”

Furthermore, it is true that as the U.S. suffers from a massive heroin epidemic that killed over 47,000 people in 2014 alone, “nearly all” of the heroin consumed in the U.S. is smuggled in by Mexican traffickers, as the Washington Post found. Drug trafficking is an inherently violent operation.  

UPDATE: Later in Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, while trying to attack Trump’s detailed immigration policy proposals, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine again claimed that Donald Trump and Mike Pence said "all Mexicans are bad." 

Fact Check: FALSE. These words have never been uttered by either the Republican presidential nominee or vice presidential nominee. Again, Trump specifically criticized the rampant criminal activities committed by illegal aliens coming across the U.S.-Mexico border, many of whom are Mexican nationals.

During Tuesday's vice-presidential debate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine claimed that stop-and-frisk "polarizes the relationship between police and communities.”

Fact check: FALSE.

The stop-and-frisk policy dates back to a 1968 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that allowed police to stop and frisk in individual based on a reasonable suspicion that he or she is armed and dangerous and may be involved in a crime. The policy has been constitutional for nearly four decades. During that time, and especially during the last two decades (until the last two years), relationships between police and communities have improved. 

After Bill de Blasio became mayor of New York in 2014, that city dropped stop-and-frisk. That coincided with a precipitous decline in the relationship between police and communities. If stop-and-frisk were the cause of the friction, ending that policy would have resulted in better and more harmonious relationships. Stop-and-frisk has nothing to do with the present controversy.

During Tuesday night's vice-presidential debate, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine asserted that, thanks to the nuclear deal with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), the Iranian nuclear weapons program has indefinitely ceased to exist.

"Did you know Iran was racing toward a nuclear weapon and Russia was expanding its stockpile?" Kaine asked, adding later, "Under Secretary Clinton's leadership... [the United States] worked a tough negotiation with nations around the world to eliminate the Iranian nuclear weapons program without firing a shot."

There is no evidence that the Islamic Republic of Iran has abandoned its nuclear ambitions, and subsequent revelations of secret "side deals" as part of the greater JCPoA exposed the fact that Iran may be able to double its uranium enrichment capacity after a decade.

The Iranian nuclear deal was signed in July 2015. A year later, the Associated Press published the provisions hidden in a document not publicly available previously, which elucidated what would happen to the Iranian nuclear program after the first ten years of the agreement's implementation. According to that document, Iran will be allowed to begin "replacing its mainstay centrifuges with thousands of advanced machines." While it will ultimately possess fewer centrifuges to enrich uranium with, these machines will be so efficient, the AP notes, that "they will allow Iran to enrich at more than twice the rate it is doing now."

A report released this September by the Institute for Science and International Security found that the deal will also allow, through an exemption, Iran to keep 50 tons of heavy water and "continue operating 19 'hot cell' radiation containment chambers."

Possessing materials such as enriched uranium and heavy water does not necessarily mean Iran will have the capacity to restore its nuclear program. The deal will not allow nuclear inspectors to confirm, however, whether or not Iran is complying with the deal. Iran got negotiators to agree that no U.S. nuclear inspectors will be allowed on Iranian soil.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has done little to calm those alarmed by the possibility of Iran having access to advance uranium enrichment technology. Shortly after the signing of the deal, he published a book titled Palestine, in which he argues that Iran has a role to play in the destruction of Israel, and so must work to create and possess the strongest weapons possible.

During Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine claimed that Donald Trump wants to repeal the federal minimum wage. 

In May, Trump said he thought minimum wage levels should be left to the states, and offered the opinion that the current minimum wage sounds too low for workers to make a decent living. Later, in August, he expressed support for raising the minimum wage to $10 per hour, but still preferred to let state governments handle the issue.

“I have seen what's going on. And I don't know how people make it on $7.25 an hour. Now, with that being said, I would like to see an increase of some magnitude. But I'd rather leave it to the states. Let the states decide. Because don't forget, the states have to compete with each other,” Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on May 8, 2016.

Asked by NBC’s Chuck Todd if he thought the federal government should set a minimum wage floor, Trump replied:

No, I'd rather have the states go out and do what they have to do. And the states compete with each other, not only other countries, but they compete with each other, Chuck. So I like the idea of let the states decide. But I think people should get more. I think they're out there. They're working. It is a very low number. You know, with what's happened to the economy, with what's happened to the cost. I mean, it's just-- I don't know how you live on $7.25 an hour. But I would say let the states decide.

In August, Trump told Bill O’Reilly of Fox News that he still does not believe there “has to be” a federal minimum wage, but added, “I would leave it and raise it somewhat. You need to help people. I know it's not very Republican to say.”

When O’Reilly proposed a $10 minimum wage, Trump replied, “I would say 10. I would say 10. But with the understanding that somebody like me is going to bring back jobs. I don't want people to be in that $10 category for very long. But the thing is, Bill, let the states make the deal.”

Trump has maintained this position in several subsequent comments: he believes the minimum wage should be raised to $10, but the states should do it, not the federal government.

During Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine claimed that Donald Trump said that “we’ll only work together with Israel if they pay ‘big league’.”

Fact check: FALSE.

Donald Trump has never made the U.S. alliance with Israel conditional. Period. That part of the statement — “ONLY work together with Israel if…” — is 100% false.

As for the phrase “big league,” Trump did use those words — but not specifically in relation to Israel. He was talking, in general, about countries that America defends. 

Israel is not one of them: the U.S. provides money for Israeli defense, but does not defend Israel directly. 

Here is Trump’s exact quote, as reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

At a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Monday, the Republican presidential front-runner was asked whether he believed the Israeli government should pay for American defense, as he had called for other U.S. allies, such as South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia, to do.

“I think Israel will do that also, yeah, I think Israel do — there are many countries that can pay and they can pay big league,” Trump responded.”

Later that day, Trump gave a well-received speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual policy conference.

During Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine claimed that Mike Pence has attempted to repeal Social Security.

In fact, as CNN Money noted in a July profile of Pence, he was a “leading fiscal conservative” during his 12 years in Congress, and “backed various efforts to reform Social Security in a bid to make the program solvent for the long term and to reduce government spending.”

As CNN Money noted, one of those reform plans was proposed by President George W. Bush. Pence and other conservatives had “previously proposed a similar but more aggressive reform plan than Bush's - one that would have phased in faster and let workers put more of their payroll taxes into private accounts.”

It is a common liberal caricature of these proposals to claim they would have wiped out Social Security, but this is merely hysterical rhetoric, of the sort deployed against all serious reform efforts. Allowing workers the option to put some of their money into private accounts would not have “repealed” or “destroyed” Social Security; those who proposed such reforms were explicitly attempting to save the system, which is unquestionably heading for insolvency, according to the Social Security trustees themselves.

CNN Money also recalled Pence stating that cuts to Social Security payments, or increases to the retirement age, were “on the table” in 2010. “I think everything has to be on the table. I'm an all-of-the-above guy. We need look at everything on the menu,” Pence declared.

Most politicians, including most Democrats, make similar statements about looking at all options to keep Social Security solvent for as long as possible. President Barack Obama proposed cuts to Social Security benefits in his budget for fiscal 2015, for example. Raising the retirement age is frequently discussed as a way to keep the system running as the U.S. population ages, although the idea is always controversial.

As for Donald Trump, he has said, “I will do everything within my power not to touch Social Security, to leave it the way it is.”

He added, however, that “as our demography changes, a prudent administration would begin to examine what changes might be necessary for future generations.”

Asked during Tuesday night's Vice Presidential debate whether the threat of terrorism in the United States has increased or decreased in the past eight years, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine argued that the threat of terrorism has decreased "in some ways" because of the reduction in the number of deployed troops, the passage of the Iran nuclear deal, and the death of Osama bin Laden.

"The terrorist threat has decreased in some ways because Bin Laden is dead," Kaine argued, receiving the question to answer before rival Mike Pence. "The terrorist threat has decreased in some ways because the Iranian nuclear weapons program has been stopped," he added, arguing that U.S. troops are also safer because there are "not 175,000 in a dangerous part in the world, there's only 15,000."

The death of Al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden with little strategy for what to do with the beheaded jihadi organization has led to the terror group splintering into multiple factions. Al Qaeda in Iraq, once led by former terror camp leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, evolved into what is now known as the Islamic State, led by self-appointed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Al Qaeda affiliated militia al-Nusra Front has officially severed from its parent terrorist group in Syria, and continues operating as a jihadist terror group under the name "Jabhat Fateh al-Sham."

Despite parenting new, deadly terror threats, Al Qaeda itself remains extremely formidable, expanding out of terrorist attacks and into "drug trafficking affiliated with Mexican drug cartels, kidnapping for ransom, smuggling of arms, wildlife, coal, oil, gas, timber, precious metals, and people." 

“This has enabled them not only to become independent but also richer and more powerful,” according to a Global Terrorism Index (GTI) report.

Al Qaeda has also cemented itself in regions destabilized during Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, notably Libya and Yemen.

Kaine's claim that the Iranian nuclear deal (the "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action" – JCPoA) eliminates the Iranian nuclear program entirely has been proven inaccurate.

The Chairman of the 9/11 Commission has said that the threat of terrorism worldwide is greater in 2016 than in 2001. For a numerical analysis, the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) documented 32,685 terrorist-caused deaths in 2014, compared to slightly over 5,000 in 2001.

During Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine claimed that Indiana Governor Mike Pence said that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “inarguably a better leader than Barack Obama.”

In truth, Pence said Putin was a "stronger leader" than Obama, which is very different from Kaine’s characterization of his remarks.

“I think it's inarguable that Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country. And that's going to change the day that Donald Trump becomes president,” Pence said during an interview with Dana Bash of CNN, responding to a question about Donald Trump making a similar comment the previous evening at the Commander-in-Chief forum.

Pence also noted Trump “said last night he doesn't particularly like the system” in Russia.

During Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine tried to claim that the Clinton Foundation is not a pay-to-play scheme, but “a foundation that does good work,” — so good, in fact, that it “gets higher rankings for its charity than the American Red Cross.”

Fact check: FALSE.

It is not a new claim — and left-leaning Snopes.com had the chance to review it earlier in the year, declaring it a “mixture”: 

WHAT'S TRUE: The charity ranking site CharityWatch grades the Clinton Foundation as an "A" and the Red Cross as an "A-."

WHAT'S FALSE: The larger and more highly regarded Charity Navigator has refused to evaluate the Clinton Foundation after an early 2015 dispute over bad press and allegations of a lack of transparency; on 1 September 2016, Charity Navigator reinstated the Foundation's rating.

Snopes.com adds: “How much credence one should afford these rankings is debatable, however. Charity Navigator is the much larger and more highly regarded site.”

In addition, Charity Navigator had put the Clinton Foundation on a “watch list,” partly due to concerns over donations from foreign governments during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. It reinstated the Clinton Foundation, conveniently, in time for the 2016 presidential election.

The integrity of the American Red Cross has never been in question. Not so, the Clinton Foundation.

Contrary to his denials, Democratic vice presidential nominee and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine most certainly was a leader in the boycott of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in March 2015.

Kaine claimed to be proud of the boycott at the time. “I’m not dumb, I knew not going to the speech might make some folks mad with me - there would be a political price, but I felt so strongly as a matter of principle that this was done in an entirely inappropriate way,” he told Forward, denouncing Netanyahu’s speech as “done purely to try and influence the Israeli elections and demonstrate American support for one person and one party.”

Kaine was particularly incensed by Netanyahu’s criticism of the Iran nuclear deal - the same deal he now claims Israel supports.

“Kaine worked behind the scenes to try to delay the speech, but when that failed, was among the first Democratic senators to announce that they would not attend the address,” the Times of Israel reported in July.

The New York Sun had little patience for Kaine’s claims to have “paid a price” for his stance: “As for the price Mr. Kaine has supposedly paid for his willingness to boycott Mr. Netanyahu’s speech, he can now count his selection as his party’s vice presidential nominee. What a cost.”

The Sun declared that Clinton’s choice of “one of the eight Democrats who boycotted Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address last year to a joint meeting of Congress” as her running mate was “one marker of the fact that for all Mrs. Clinton’s protestations of support for the Jewish State, it would be a fool’s wager to count on her when the chips are down.”

While answering the first question of the vice-presidential debate Tuesday, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine mentioned Barbara Johns, who "led a walk-out of her high school; She made history by protesting school segregation."

What Senator Kaine failed to mention is that the governor of Virginia during Johns' walk-out was a Democrat named John Stewart Battle.

Johns was protesting Virginia's segregated public school systems. 

It was in 1951 when a 16-year-old Johns walked out of her Moton High School, an all-black school in Farmville, Virginia, which sat across the street from an all-white high school. 

Battle, who was elected Virginia governor in 1950, was known widely as a segregationist -- and he governed as such. 

According to the Encyclopedia of Virginia, "when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, demanded the desegregation of state parks, Battle raised the possibility of closing them instead."

While responding to a question about immigration enforcement Tuesday at the vice-presidential debate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine said, "when Donald Trump spoke in Phoenix, he looked the audience in the eye and said 'No, we're building and we're deporting everybody.' He said, quote, 'They will all be gone.'" 

This is absolutely false.

Indeed, during Donald Trump's immigration policy on Wednesday August 31 in Phoenix, the Republican presidential nominee promised the audience that on "day one" the "2 million riminal aliens now inside of our country" are "gone."

Trump said his administration will have "zero tolerance for criminal aliens."

The portion of Trump's immigration speech where he talks about deporting illegal aliens can be found below:

According to federal data, there are at least 2 million, 2 million, think of it, criminal aliens now inside of our country, 2 million people criminal aliens. We will begin moving them out day one. As soon as I take office. Day one. In joint operation with local, state, and federal law enforcement.

During Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, Sen. Kaine (D-VA) — interrupting Indiana Gov. Mike Pence for the umpteenth time — accused Trump and Pence of “violating the Constitution by blocking people based on their national origin rather than whether they’re dangerous.”

Fact check: FALSE. That is not unconstitutional. That is current U.S. immigration policy. We prefer some countries over others. That is constitutional, lawful, and logical. There is no U.S. constitutional provision providing equal protection for people based on national origin — certainly when they are not yet in the United States! Kaine went further, saying that it was unconstitutional for Donald Trump to “keep them out if they’re Muslim.” Trump has since softened that stance somewhat, and now wants to keep people out from terror-prone countries. But regardless, the constitutional protection against religious discrimination does not apply to people who are not yet immigrants, residents or citizens. In fact, our current immigration policy “discriminates” against Muslims because it does not permit people to bring over their spouses from polygamous marriages, which are permitted in many Muslim countries. That kind of discrimination is constitutional and lawful. It would, arguably, be appropriate for the U.S. to discriminate in favor of some religions — such as Christians and Yazidis — who are subject to discrimination and persecution in the Muslim world. Regardless, it would be constitutional to do so.

During Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence said: “We’re in the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression.”

Fact check: MOSTLY TRUE.

Pence is right, according to a report from the Heartland Institute, a conservative policy organization. 

His claim might, however, understate the role of the Second World War, which jump-started the economy — not through spending, but by relaxing many of the restrictions that had slowed recovery from the Great Depression.

So others say it is simply the slowest since World War II, or 1949. Regardless, it has been slow.

Kaine’s numbers, by contrast, fell short. He claimed that the Obama administration had created 15 million jobs — a claim that only works if you ignore the first year of Obama’s presidency, when unemployment continued to rise. Kaine overstated the number of jobs created by some 5 million.

None other than the Washington Post’s fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, disputed the Clinton campaign’s “15 million jobs” talking point: “Clinton frequently indicates that she’s talking about the entire Obama administration. She uses phrases such ‘than when they took office’ or ‘in the last 7 1/2 years.’ But that’s 5 million jobs too many.”

And that’s without looking at the decline in household wealth, the rise in the number of Americans who have dropped out of the labor force, and the staggering national debt that produced virtually nothing, jobs-wise, for $10 trillion in deficit spending.